39. 39 Gigi
39
39 GIGI
STAY (I MISSED YOU)
“Damn,” Ryan said, peering out from behind the curtain. “Full house tonight.”
I joined him, chin resting on his shoulder. My eyes widened as I took in hundreds upon hundreds of bodies, milling around as they awaited the start of the show.
We were backstage at The Ledge, in a corner designated as our dressing room . The closer we got to go time, the louder it got out there. Finally, Ryan had given into his curiosity and taken a peek.
I kinda wished I hadn’t followed suit.
We’d performed to sold out clubs before. Packed bars like Heathcliff’s multiple times since I’d joined the band. But The Ledge was a designated concert space, wide open and waiting to be filled with people. When we rehearsed earlier, I thought there was no way it’d fill up. But we were still forty minutes out from showtime, and the place was packed.
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
Halle joined us, leaning over me to get a peek. She let out a low whistle. I glanced behind me and caught her eye. She smirked, eyes twinkling. “Nervous now?”
I reached back and poked her in the pit. She screeched and jerked away. I laughed as I answered her. “Not a chance.”
It was a lie. Kind of. My stomach fluttered like it was full of tiny, backflipping ninjas. Exhaling through pursed lips, I began to pace. Halle leaned against the wall and watched, arms folded across her teensy tee, and smirked.
“Shut up,” I grumbled. She smirked wider. Flipping her off, I continued my pacing.
The five of us had settled into an easy dynamic over the last few weeks. It helped that I’d known these guys prior to joining the band, but more than that, they were good people. Raucous and annoying at times, but good people. Singing with them every weekend, hanging out after rehearsals throughout the week, had soothed parts of me I didn’t know needed soothing.
Hell, I was even almost happy.
But what was that saying about almost ? It only counted in horseshoes and not being a dumbass?
The thought threw off the rhythm of my pacing. I looked around to see if anyone had noticed the way I tripped over my own damn feet, and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw everyone lost in their own pre-show jitters. Halle was retying the bandana on her head for the seventh or eighth time. Tommy was doing push-ups while Olsen sat on his back, and Ryan was checking out how his biceps looked in his muscle tee.
Wiping my hands over my overalls, I crossed the room, grabbing my phone. Vaughn and Anya were coming tonight. Luke, too. Should probably make sure they got in all right. Should probably—
Everything skidded to a stop when I read the name on my screen. My heart lurched to a halt, my breath froze, my brain glitched. I stared at my phone for so long the screen went dark, and then I tapped it frantically, afraid I’d imagined things, that the darkness would eat her words. The relief that rushed through me when her name was still there about dropped me to my knees.
Fumbling behind me, I blindly located a chair and I sat. Then, heart in throat, I cradled my phone in both hands. Right now, in this moment, I was in between. Nestled into the gap of not knowing and knowing. Where it was safe. Once I opened the text, once I read her words…
My mind raced with what ifs and maybes. What if it was an I miss you text? An I messed up, and I want you back text? Or, maybe it was the opposite. Maybe she’d taken all this time to think and had arrived at the conclusion that what we’d had was all a big mistake. Maybe she regretted it. Regretted me.
Or—
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Gigi, what does it say?”
I looked up to find everyone watching me. Frowning, I looked from face to face, each one more curious than the last, until I landed on Halle. She’d been the one to crash through my spiral with her question. Her stare was unflinching. “Well?”
“I…don’t know what you’re talking about.” I put my phone face-down on my thigh and straightened. “It’s just my brother saying—”
“Oh, you’re so full of shit.” Halle shoved away from the wall and stomped over to me. “Your face went from Casper to Sebastian the lobster, then back again. That was not your brother.”
“Crab,” I said, staring hard at the back of my phone, wiping at the fingerprints on its plastic case.
“What?”
Looking up, I repeated it. “Crab. Sebastian is a Crab.”
Halle rolled her eyes. “My point stands.”
My grip tightened on my phone. I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She dropped into the seat next to me with a sigh. I glanced sideways at her. “Don’t do it,” I said. “I’ve gotten enough lectures to last me twenty lifetimes. I don’t need another one.”
“Oh, I’m not gonna lecture you.” She sat back, eyes straight ahead. Everyone else scattered like guilty teens caught smoking in the bathroom, leaving us alone. “That’d be a waste of both of our time.”
“Thanks.” Tracing my thumb along the edge of my phone, I exhaled. It did nothing to ease the knot in my chest.
“You know,” Halle said, “I’m constantly surprised by how stupid people can be.”
Frowning, I looked her way. She still stared ahead, giving nothing away. After a second, she continued. “You love her, don’t you?”
The question hit me like a flaming cannon ball, right to the chest. I sank back in my chair, air knocked out of me. Yes, I thought. Of course I do. And, More than life itself.
But I said: “What does it matter?”
“You’re joking, right?” Halle turned to face me, brows drawn together. “What does it matter?”
I couldn’t look at her. Instead, I gripped my phone tighter, watching the way my hands whitened. “Yeah,” I said, my voice quieter than before “What does it matter?”
In my periphery, I could see Halle shake her head, dumbfounded. There was quiet then, and I thought I was free of Halle’s scrutiny, her scorn. But instead of getting up and going back to her pre-show routine, she stayed put, and I knew she wasn’t done.
I knew she wasn’t done, but I wasn’t ready for what she’d say next.
“Maybe you don’t deserve her, then.”
My head shot up. I faced her, a flash of anger flaring hot inside my chest. “You don’t know—”
“There it is.” She booped my nose with her fingertip. “There’s the give-a-damn.”
“What do you mean?” I jerked out of her reach, the flash becoming a fire. “Of course I give a damn. I give too many damns. That’s the problem.”
“Then fucking show it.” She stood and tugged her low-rise cargo pants up. Then, she pointed at my phone, still face down on my thigh. “Regardless of what that text says, she thought of you tonight. Whether it was to tell you she hopes you crash and burn, or to wish you luck, she thought of you. And she did something about it, which is more than can be said for you.”
“Jesus, Hal—”
“I’m just saying.” She shrugged, as if she hadn’t gutted me like a fish. “Maybe don’t be such a goddamn coward.” Then, before I could argue, could even think of a retort, she walked away.
I watched as she joined everyone else in the farthest corner, where they commiserated quietly. I glared their way, and, in eerie unison, they all gave me a thumbs up.
“What the fuck?” I whispered. Picking my phone up, I flipped it over. Her name was still there, the notification untouched. My heart squeezed so tight I thought it would burst. Blowing a slow breath out between pursed lips, I pressed my shaking fingertip to the screen and opened the message.
Break a leg tonight , it read.
Break a leg tonight
No punctuation, no emojis. Just four little words. Four words so devoid of personality, of emotion, of Parker, that I wasn’t sure how to process them. I stared at the screen until the words blurred, until they ceased to make sense. Halle’s words echoed in the back of my mind: Regardless of what it says, she thought of you tonight .
She thought of you tonight.
She thought. Of you.
She thought of me.
The realization hit like a bass drum, vibrating from my marrow to my skin. I closed my eyes, gripping my phone tight in both my hands, oxygen leaving my body in a mighty gust.
It could mean nothing , I told myself. It could change nothing.
But maybe, another voice chimed in. Maybe it could change everything .
With that thought buoying me, I stood from my chair and joined the band for our pre-show huddle.
It was showtime.
We were on fire tonight.
Over the last couple weeks, we’d made some changes to the setlist, did some adding and subtracting, until the songs flowed and the vibe was right. We’d pared back on the songs that had fit Jas’s voice better and added some in that worked for me. Now, instead of Mariah Carey in the middle of the set, we had Melissa Etheridge, which flowed right into Alanis so seamlessly it was almost as if they were written that way. We kept the crowd favorites. Britney and Matchbox Twenty and Green Day, which Ryan always killed. But we also worked in an acoustic moment, me and my guitar, for a quiet moment before the last half of the set.
Which was where we were at now. I stood, center stage, as the lights dimmed around me, as the spotlight found me. I strummed the opening notes of Lisa Loeb’s iconic number, smiling when the crowd quieted, then came back to life as I sang the first lines of the song. It only took two words for recognition to hit, to turn it into a singalong, hundreds of voices joining in.
It was as insane as it was magical, and I couldn’t have stopped my grin if I wanted to. Euphoria and adrenaline carried me through the song as I tried to give the audience back everything they were giving me. Behind me, I could hear the rest of the band singing along off-mic, and that made me grin harder. Tossing a glance over my shoulder, I saw Halle mouth Fuck yeah. In that moment, I could almost die happy.
Emphasis on almost .
Facing forward again, I launched into the bridge that had to have inspired T-Swift at some point, relishing in the crowd singing the words right back to me. Then, as if fate and the universe orchestrated this very moment, the lighting guy illuminated the crowd, giving them their moment to shine, as my lips formed the words I missed you . And there she was.
Parker.
There, in the middle of hundreds of singing and dancing people. She stood still, eyes locked on me. Not singing along like everyone around her, not swaying to the music. Just…staring. Everything inside me flared to life. Holding her gaze, I sang, the cavernous room shrinking and shrinking until it was just the two of us. Until I was singing only for her.
As the last line of the song fell from my lips, it was with my heart outside of my chest, the melody carrying it over the crowd, dropping it at the feet of the woman with cloudless-sky eyes and a kitten-covered dress.
The lights went out then, and the rest of the band took their spots beside me, preparing to launch into the next song. When the place lit up again, I searched the human sea before me for my heart, my anchor, my person.
She was gone.